


Meeting Interruptus

by UrbanMuzes (notenuffcaffeine)



Category: Franklin & Bash
Genre: Gen, Random & Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 22:14:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5802166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notenuffcaffeine/pseuds/UrbanMuzes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing pen leads to an impromptu pre-meeting trial. Some lawyers just never leave the court room.</p><p>--------</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meeting Interruptus

“I know I had it here somewhere.” Peter reached over and started digging under the folio that Jared was doodling in. Jared held his hands up, aghast as the line that dragged across what had nearly been a perfect set of... well, never-mind, but their perfection had been ruined by Peter’s search.

“What?” he asked, annoyed.

“My pen,” said Peter. Jared folded his arms on the table and started lightly beating his head against them.

“Oh, not that again.” Jared’s complaint went ignored. Peter looked up and over at Hanna and around the other nearby faces.

“Has somebody seen my pen?” he asked. He held up his hands to show the appropriate length of the pen. “It was about this long, red tip on the end?”

Not impressed with the usual antics, Damien dropped his briefcase down on the table in front of him, opened it so that it might better block Peter’s search. “If you gentlemen would knock it the hell off with the Laurel and Hardy show, we’re trying to have a meeting...”

“Yeah, but I need my pen or I can’t take notes,” said Peter.

“Yeah, a man’s gotta have a pen. It’s not his fault one of you jokers stole it,” agreed Jared. He was being intentionally sycophantic because it tended to annoy people when he did that, and Damien was oh-so-much fun to annoy.

Damien gave a dignified grunt of annoyance and opened one of the folders stacked in front of him, waiting impatiently to be passed out to those who needed briefed on his expectations for his current cases. 

“Maybe you should check your ass, it might still be shoved up there,” he said. “Just borrow one already.”

Jared rolled his eyes and pointedly ignored the advice, looking back to Peter. "And speaking of my ass, I'd like to discuss the inappropriateness of last night"

“Inappropriateness?” echoed Peter. “That's not what you were saying. I seem to recall lots of Yes! and Oh god... and ‘more please, more!’ in there. But nothing about appropriateness. Oh, and, ‘You are a god’ once or twice. That was fun.” 

"Objection, that is such total bullshit.”

“What’s bullshit?”

“That you are a god. At any-thing.” Jared accented the words with a pointed finger stabbing the air that doubled as a sharp pin to poke holes in lies like his friend’s resemblance to godliness.

“What? There I am in bed…” Peter’s story trailed off as he saw the slightest movement out the corner of his eye. He turned to address Jared. “Wait, are you laughing?”

Jared made an attempt at sobering, but didn’t make a very good sell of it. The occasional snicker still crept out. “No”

Peter looked accosted. “You’re laughing.”

Jared shook his head lazily, lounged back in his chair. “No, I’m not. Okay, yes. Yes, I am.”

Peter was suddenly offended and bullied and over-dramatically victimized all at once. He shrugged and crossed his arms. “Hey, I’m just repeating what I witnessed...”

“In your very dirty, very wrong dreams,” said Jared. “Because I would never say that.”

“You did.”

“No, I think you got it backwards, because those words were said last night. To me.”

“No, no, no, I call objection now!”

“On what grounds?” asked Jared.

“On the grounds that you are a lying, mean little man,” said Peter. To Jared’s dismay and Peter’s amusement, there were a few nods of agreement from their jury seated around the table. 

“Hey!” said Jared. He backhanded Peter’s shoulder in half-hearted retaliation. Peter didn’t seem to notice. He was on a roll and didn’t waste a breath waiting as he went on.

“...and that you were totally distracted by my glorious manhood.”

“First, I am not little...” Jared suddenly paused, hand raised to begin the formal protest, but there was suddenly an awkward silence in the room beyond his words that couldn’t be ignored. “And did you just say glorious manhood?”

Peter looked around at the dubious expressions of the other lawyers and was forced to admit that he had. He gave a slow nod. “… yeah. Permission to strike that from the record.”

“Oh hell yes,” agreed Jared.

Damien Karp’s tolerance for the apparently never ending joke known as Franklin and Bash was in short supply that morning and he definitely didn’t want to be forced to think about either of them having anything to do with the glorious business of manhood. “I hardly think this is the time...”

“Request to strike sustained. Do carry on gentlemen,” said Stanton, perfectly bemused by the conversation. Franklin quirked a brow from their overly eager boss to Bash. Jared just shrugged and was already moving on.

“Like he said, there *I* am, lying in bed, just after Margarita Monday, because that’s what Margarita Monday is for anyway. And in walks that meathead...” said Jared. His stabbing finger poked in the direction of Peter’s shoulder.

“Hey...” Peter frowned, dangerously close to a pout. Jared carried on. 

“...all hot and bothered over...”

“Hey! No reason to get nasty!” Wide eyed, the pout now resembled more of a scowl. A little pink to Peter’s ears, however, added veracity to Jared’s claims.

“...something. And so I have to get my ass outta bed to go see what he wants from me.”

“Really? Do tell, Mr. Franklin. What is it he...” Stanton’s question was interrupted by his nephew again.

“Objection!” said Damien. It was nearly a yelp, complete with a hand stretched across the table to flag for attention. “I don’t want to hear you ask for clarification to this absurd testimony.”

“On what grounds?” asked Stanton.

Damien looked around at the faces of the lesser lawyers seated at the table around him, seeking some kind of back-up. Then he looked back to Stanton. “On the grounds that you’re the owner of this firm and your interest in their complaints is potentially mentally scaring to the rest of us in this room?”

“Overruled,” sniffed Stanton. He turned back to look at Jared and Peter. “Answer the question.”

“Wait... what question? Was there a question? I was just telling a story before he told it.” Jared was looking rather intentionally baffled. Peter kicked him in the ankle under the table. Their boss opened his mouth to repeat the question he had been prevented from asking, but Hanna jumped in quickly.

“What is it that Mr. Bash entered your room to ask about, Mr. Franklin?” she asked. Jared hadn’t expected Hanna to join in the fun and seemed to withdraw with an air of pure innocence.

“...a pen.”

“What pen? Can you be more specific in this story of yours?” Hanna asked. Jared shrugged. He held up his hands to hold them apart the appropriately illustrative distance.

“It’s about this long, got a red tip on it.”

“The one that’s missing from this table now?” asked Hanna.

“Yeah, but we don’t know if ever actually made it to the table because this meathead’s a meathead and he’s probably just looking to make sure I can’t take my usual nap through the meeting,” said Jared.

“Meeting?” came Damien’s voice. The lawyer was stooped over a propped up elbow, looking miserable and half hidden behind his suitcase lid, which made Jared smile fondly. “What meeting? There’s no meeting here.”

“Look, I just want my pen back, so if you’d just give it back to me, we could get back to the meeting and you could get back to your nap,” said Peter. He held a hand out to Jared expectantly. Jared looked up at his usual partner-in-crime, genuinely baffled.

“I don’t have it. Why would I have it?” he asked. “I hate that pen. If I had it, it’d have been shipped to Hawaii and dropped in a volcano by now.”

“You had it tossed in a volcano?” asked Peter loudly.

“I was the one sexually assaulted! I hate your stupid pen!” returned Jared. It occurred to him that he had said the words a bit louder than intended, but his chagrin was tempered by the slow steady thud of Damien’s head against the table which made it well worth the embarrassment. Hanna was suddenly fighting against her amusement and her curiosity and she politely cleared her throat to remain focused.

“Mr. Franklin,” she began, ever the professional.

“It’s my lucky pen!” interrupted Peter. “You’re not allowed to throw it in a volcano.”

“Order!” said Stanton. He was highly interested in the little drama at his conference table, for the simple absurdity of it as a break to their normal, boring and dull meetings. Once again he was reminded that hiring Franklin and Bash had signed the death warrant on boring and dull. “Defense may speak when questioned by council.”

“Defense?” said Peter. “Why am I defense? He stole my pen as soon as we sat down.”

“As Mr. Franklin alleges sexual assault, this is no longer a civil matter,” said Stanton, enjoying his tenure as judge. “Ergo, you are defense, as it is your pen, presumably, that committed the crime.”

“It was,” said Jared and Peter quickly.

“Very well. Continue,” said Stanton. He gave a benevolent wave to Hanna.

“Mr. Franklin, under what circumstances did this assault take place?” she asked.

“Like I said, he came running in looking for the pen, and he wanted help finding it. So being the nice roomie that I am, I got up to go help him look for it,” said Jared. “And as soon as I get out to the front, the place is a mess like usual, everyone's either gone already or all passed out on the back deck like usual, but he’s hunting for this pen. So whatever. So I get out there, in my bare feet and boxers, and I trip on a beer bottle and land on the sofa. I start swearing and he starts praising me to all the saints in Heaven because there’s his... his damn pen, pointy end stabbing me in the ass through my boxers.” Jared paused, a hand rubbing his rump around the cushy office chair from remembered pain. He sniffed for dramatic flare. “There’s just some things a band-aid can’t fix, you know?”

There was a sudden choking sound and Damien was suddenly sitting bolt upright from where he had been slouched over his arms. He reached for his tumbler of water and emptied it in one gulp, then reached in to his still open briefcase to pull out a small flask, tipping its contents in to the glass. It was then swished around in his mouth, forcefully enough to be heard round the table, and spit back out. “Damnit, Franklin!”

“What?” asked Franklin, Bash, and half a dozen other voices. Hanna tilted her head, reached in to Damien’s briefcase while he was busy swishing again. She was smirking as she withdrew a half-chewed pen, the pointy red end nearly damaged beyond all use. Jared smacked Peter in the shoulder as the stunned-speechless lawyer reached forward to accept it from her.

“See?” said Jared. “Told you it wasn’t me who took it.”

Peter frowned sadly at the remains of his pen, wiping at it vainly with the corner of Jared’s jacket over the back of the man’s chair.

“Case closed,” Stanton announced, smirking at Damien’s traumatized gargling. “We will calendar another date for Mr. Karp’s destruction of property and vandalism trial later. For now, let us resume our meeting?”

*~*~*  
~fin~


End file.
